Letters

The new parking system is a chaotic mess in the Village of Sag Harbor and needs a second look. If confusion and chaos was their goal, they certainly achieved it.

Parking enforcement in a small community needs to be a balance of common sense and achievement. Protect residents from rabid enforcement, and at the same time manage your limited space for those tourists who visit.

This past Memorial Day weekend, I observed traffic enforcement banging out summonses on a cold, wet and windy Friday, when Long Wharf was basically empty. Welcome to the new Sag Harbor.

I’m sure the Suffolk County executives would not have turned over the historic wharf if they knew the village was going to make it a paid parking lot.

What’s clear now: This has become a money grab by the village. By creating paid parking only on the wharf, it has made our local community flood the main street to park — a situation that they wanted to alleviate. How they thought pushing this agenda would solve that problem is beyond belief.

The so-called one-hour free parking is a scam. You have to pay to receive your first hour; even though the sign says “first hour free,” the signage doesn’t say “pay first to receive the first hour.” So, no more parking for a 40-minute walk around the harbor. That’s left for the poor suckers who visit our community so we can pick their pockets to pay to spend money in our community.

What genius came up with that idea? I can certainly say it’s not someone who depends on others to pay the bills. In fact, since the town is now making money from paid parking, maybe they can use that money to help the businesses pay their bills from all the money they will lose from the lack of customers willing to spend money in Sag Harbor.

So, I remind you that Sag Harbor Village is a unique mixture of businesses that pull from multiple communities, from East Hampton, Wainscott, Bridgehampton, Baypoint, Noyac, North Haven, North Sea and Southampton.

As if, fiscally, the Sag Harbor business community didn’t suffer enough last year, the village decided to double down and drive a stake through it.

Park Mobile was sued in 2021 for a data breach that compromised 21 million users. They settled for over $32 million. Why does a small town need such a conglomerate compromising our financial integrity?

The role of government, especially small-town government, is to make our lives easier. Unfortunately, what they have achieved is not easier nor sane.

Thomas Jones

Sag Harbor